| Ask and You Shall Receive |
| Matthew 7:7 |
| by David A. DePra |
| "Ask, and it shall be given you." |
| Jesus said, "Ask, and you shall receive." Yet sometimes it |
| seems like we do much asking, but little receiving. Why? What |
| is the key to answered prayer? |
| In the Bible, there are three requirements for answered |
| prayer: First, my "asking" must be according to the will of God. |
| Second, I must BELIEVE that God shall do what I ask. Third, I |
| must pray in the name of Jesus. |
| That is simple enough. But what do those requirements |
| really mean? What does it mean to "ask" -- by God's |
| definition? And what does it mean to "believe" you will receive |
| what you are asking? And finally, what does it really mean to |
| pray "in the name of Jesus?" |
| First, God's definition of "asking:" To "ask" for God's will |
| means to SURRENDER to His will. It means to ask God to |
| override my will with His own. To "ask" according to God's |
| will is to say, and really mean, "Yet not my will, but Thine." |
| Actually, God is not going to answer any prayer which |
| asks Him to do OUR will. And we shouldn't want Him to. God |
| wants all of our asking to be "according to His will" -- even if we |
| don't know what His will is. We can nevertheless surrender |
| to God in our asking, and request that He override our ignorance |
| with His will. God will not fail to answer such a prayer. |
| Being surrendered to God in my asking naturally leads to |
| the second requirement for answered prayer: Faith. I must |
| believe God will do His will if I ask Him to. |
| Notice how remarkably simple this is. All God wants is for |
| me to believe He shall do His will if I ask Him. What could be |
| easier to believe? Think about it. If someone came to you and |
| asked you to do your will; asked you to do what you already |
| wanted to do, would you hesitate doing it? No. You would |
| grant their request without argument. |
| Such is the case with God. He wants to do His will in our |
| lives more than we want Him to do it. Therefore, if we ask Him |
| to do it, our prayer is guaranteed to be answered. |
| Again, there is the possibility that I don't know the will of |
| God in a particular situation. So how can I believe God |
| will grant my request if I'm not sure of His will? |
| Think about it. Do we actually think that God has never |
| considered this possibility? Imagine God being surprised by |
| the fact that we are ignorant of His will. Imagine Him saying, |
| "Well, I never thought about this possibility. I guess I should |
| have built in some kind of contingency prayer for such cases!" |
| Of course this is silly. God has already told us we might |
| not know His will. He says that many times we will not |
| know how to pray. In those cases He says the Holy Spirit |
| will intervene for us according to the will of God. The |
| point is, if we do believe God, that is, believe He is true and |
| faithful to do His will in our lives, then we DO believe. It does not |
| matter whether we know all the facts or not. Our faith is in |
| God, not in our ability to figure out every detail of His will. |
| Faith in prayer is not a matter of trusting in my ability to |
| figure out God's will. Nor is it "faith in my ability to believe." It |
| is not faith in whether I deserve an answer to prayer, or faith in |
| a particular technique in prayer. Faith is in God, through Christ. It |
| is the belief that God cares enough to do His will if I ask Him to. |
| The third requirement for answered prayer is to pray "in the |
| name of Jesus." Again, this is talking about more than just |
| tagging a slogan onto the end of a prayer in order to meet a |
| requirement. It speaks of a heart attitude and motivation. I pray |
| "in the name of Jesus" when I am praying for something Jesus |
| would pray for. That would certainly be the will of God. And it |
| would also be done with the same attitude of Jesus, that is, one |
| of a surrendered heart. |
| There is another aspect of asking in "the name of Jesus." If |
| my confidence that God is hearing my prayer rests in the fact |
| that I have been a pretty good Christian lately, then I am NOT |
| really asking "Jesus' name." I'm asking in my own. I'm trusting |
| in MY spiritual credentials. Or if my lack of confidence is |
| because I've been exposed as a spiritual failure, then I am |
| doing the same thing, only in a negative way. I am asking "in |
| the name of Jesus" ONLY if my confidence rests in Christ alone |
| APART from myself. In effect, if God asked me why He should |
| answer my prayer, I should be able to say, "Because of Your |
| Son. That's the only reason." |
| Those are the three keys to prayer: Asking according to |
| the will of God, believing God will answer according to His will, |
| and praying in the name of Jesus. God will ALWAYS answer |
| prayer in that attitude and spirit -- according to His will. |
| God would not have made prayer a difficult thing. He would |
| not have created a situation where His children had to try to |
| figure our some secret method of reaching Him. There are |
| no magic words for getting God to do what we desire. There is |
| only a surrender which is part of the greater surrender we make |
| of our lives to God. It does not get anymore complicated than |
| that. |
| Prayer is conversation with God. But it is more than that. It is |
| a time of honesty with God. A time when a person can get their |
| attitude straight. A time when a person can allow God |
| to wash them of the dirt they have picked up from life. Prayer |
| is an entering into one's private closet with God wherein eternal |
| issues are settled. |
| Nothing can take away our freedom to pray to God. All |
| Christians have unconditional personal access to God through |
| Christ. This is vital to remember. The individual requires no |
| no mediator to God other than Jesus, and nothing can ever |
| change this Truth. It is fundamental. |
| Any number of things will try to convince us otherwise; try to |
| rob us of our freedom. Religiousity has always sought to create a |
| formula out of prayer. Christians have been taught that if they just |
| pray this or that to God, that He will do what they want. Or |
| they have been taught that they need to go out and do this or |
| that work. Over and over again, man has tried to figure out a |
| way to pull God down from heaven. All the while God has been |
| saying, "I'm already done here, wanting to do my will. Just |
| surrender to it and you'll see My glory." |
| It is amazing what the result is when we ASK, BELIEVE, and |
| pray "in the name of Jesus." Yes, God does His will in our lives. |
| He gives us our requests. But more than that, we BECOME |
| God's will. So often, the prayer process results in a change in |
| ME. The more I seek and surrender to the will of God in prayer, |
| the more I become conformed to His will. The more I become a |
| personification of the very answer I prayed for. |
| Knowing the Truth about prayer is freeing, because it sets |
| me free from the burden of trying to find a magic formula to get |
| God to do what I want Him to do. God isn't going to do what I |
| want Him to do. He is going to do what He wants to do. And in |
| the end, there is nothing I will want more. I will see that He truly |
| does do "all things well." |